First Strike
by VerVerdy
Summary: Parody of Halo First Strike. John is the emotional leader, Fred has problems and Kelly is Kelly. Watch as the Spartans battle the Covenant and maybe even each other.
1. Follow the Leader

Fred dropped his combat knife for the hundredth time. It wasn't his fault this time; it was the Pillar of Autumn changing direction.

John walked to a COM panel as Captain Keyes's face appeared.

Fred looked to his right and saw Kelly doing hand signals to him. He stared for several seconds before Kelly gave up and opened a private COM freq to him.

"Looks like we are in for more surprises," she said.

"Surprises? Like a birthday gift surprise or getting glassed on our home world surprise?"

Even though he was being dead serious, Kelly chuckled. Creepy.

Fred returned his attention to John and Keyes. Even though a Spartan could hear a pin drop in a sandstorm, he didn't bother listening. Somehow he knew the Master Chief would send him on some mission where the probability of death was near certain.

He had no idea what the mission was but he wanted to be leader of it. He started forward-

-But Kelly beat him. Fred nearly gunned her right there but he remembered that he had only his knife with him. She was too fast.

_Note to self: Poison her food. Let's see her run away from that. Heh heh heh…_

"Master Chief, Permission to lead space op."

"Denied, I'll be leading that one."

_Ha, ha. Rejected._

"Linda and James, you're with me." Fred swore he saw the Chief wink at James. "Fred, you're Red Team leader."

"Sir," Fred nearly asked the Master Chief why he winked at James but that would make it seem that he was jealous. "Yes, Sir!"

"Now make ready" Master Chief said. "We don't have much time left."

There was a brief silence before Kelly called out, "Attention!"

Every person in the room looked at her.

"I meant that to the Master Chief… Just… Forget it."

Fred then began to bitch orders to the Spartans.

**_On a Pelican headed towards Reach..._**

The Spartans were currently on a Pelican stripped of all of its insides. They covered every centimeter of the floor as the pilot flew them to the surface of Reach. Did I mention there were Covenant fighters chasing them?

A flash outlined the cockpit hatch and the pilot's biomonitor flatlined.

"OH _SHIT!_ WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE! EVERYONE GATHER AROUND ME AND SHEILD ME FROM THE BLAST! NOO-"

Kelly slapped Fred.

"What? Can't you see I'm giving orders?"

"Well, this ship is breaking apart and we have two options. Either we break into the 'for emergencies only' box and safely parachute down with the equipment or the most logical option. Jump."

"Hmm… I say… we jump!" Fred opened a COM to all the Spartans. "Alright Spartans! Due to the current situation, we are forced to go the rest of the way without the aid of the Pelican." Flames from the Pelican suddenly erupted from behind him. "Any questions?"

No one said anything.

"Good. Now let's go."

Every one of the Spartans left until he and Kelly were the only ones left. Fred looked down.

"Are you sure this is safe?"

"Just jump. It's the only way."

Fred readied himself to jump but paused again.

"Are you positive?"

Kelly kicked him off.

-

Fred woke up. He remembered jumping out of a burning Pelican and falling right into a tree…

"Hey, Red-one, are you okay?" Kelly asked. She looked at his armor. "You're bleeding!"

Fred looked down and cursed. His juice box was crushed in the fall. How could he survive now? "We're all going to die!"

Kelly ignored him. She was use to it. "Four Spartans died in the fall and a couple are wounded. All our weapons and ammo were lost in the fall. We should spread out and head for the generators as soon as possible."

Fred reached for his gun. It was gone. Now this war was starting to get personal.

"Let's go. The Covenant might spot us." It took him several seconds to realize he was talking to a Jackal and not Kelly. Kelly was long gone.

It opened fire as he hid behind a rock. Fred asked himself, what would the Master Chief do?

Probably rush in the middle of the pack and take them out with an empty assault rifle. He would have traded the ammo for popsicles that he would keep cool in the cyrotubes. Good ol' John… An overloaded plasma shot whizzed passed his head.

Fred opened Kelly's private COM. "Not to rush you or anything but I need a little help… and my lower leg sections cleaned."

Kelly burst out of the trees armed with the all mighty rock. The pair of Jackals looked at each other before doubling over with laughter.

'_Good idea!_' Fred thought. '_Weaken them with laughter._'

She threw the rock at the nearest Jackal's head. It died while the other stopped laughing. Before it could react, Fred shoved his foot up its alien ass. The Jackal's eyes widened and he yelled out some strange alien curses at Fred.

Fred instantly brought back his foot and killed the Jackals with a punch to the face.

Kelly walked next to him and grabbed a plasma pistol. "Looks like we have to use these for now."

Fred fired his into the ground repeatedly. "Look at the lights!"

Pistol energy: -57

They regrouped with the other Spartans and slowly headed towards the generators. They reached a clearing that was filled with burnt bodies, both human and Covenant, destroyed vehicles and a group of four Marines.

Fred sent a transmission to them. "Marines, this is Spartan Red Team. We are coming from your six."

The group turned around. "Spartans? If you are what they say you are, we could use your help."

"Sorry we missed the battle."

"You sure as hell should be sorry!" The marine shouted.

"I was joking!" Fred shouted as well.

"Oh, we have over a thousand people dead but all you can do is joke!"

"Just forget it!"

"Forget all the people who died?"

"No, forget what I said!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"_Fine!_"

"_FINE!"_ Fred shut off the COM. All of his Spartans were staring at him. "That wasn't a private COM, was it?"

They shook their heads.

"…Damn." Fred handed the sniper rifle, which happened to not get lost in the fall, back to Joshua, much to the relief of the Spartans. "Let's move out."


	2. The Fall of Tape

Fred looked out from the bunker he was positioned in. It had a clear view of the surrounding area. His team was currently setting up traps for the Covenant.

Fred positioned himself on his throne made out of much need frag grenades. One of the Spartans guarding the bunker approached him.

"Uh. Sir. There is a... er, teammate here to see you."

"Bring him in."

Red Twelve, or Will, came up to him.

"What is your reason for coming, peasant?"

"I came to inform you that all traps are set with no Covenant contact. We also found weapons and functional Banshees..."

Fred cleared his throat.

'Damn roleplaying.' Will spoke again. "Traps are set, sir. Weapons and transportation were also apprehended from both allies and enemies."

"Good. Though I wish we found some batteries of some sort. My plasma gun's energy is running low." He looked at the gun sadly.

Will stayed silent. His mood picked up when he added, "We also found six Anaconda surface-to-air missiles and pair of Fury tac-nukes."

"Nice but the EMP would burn out my electrical stove. It would ruin my chicken as well as my will to fight."

"Not to mention the generators."

"Oh, that too." Fred contacted Red-Three. Joshua. "Report."

"Lots of Covenant. No chance of survival."

"Good. Now what about you Kelly? Any progress on the SATCOM uplink?"

"Negative." Kelly was given the task to fix Charlie Company's communication pack broken in the battle. "I think you gave me the wrong instructions." She help up the piece of paper Fred gave her. It was a placemat to a McDonald's tray. On it was a maze a Marine failed to complete correctly.

"Alright. Keep-"

"Wait. I got a transmission from Charlie Company."

"Patch it through."

"Aren't you going to verify the codes?"

"Uh. Sure." Fred twirled around his knife. "Hey, you hungry? Cause I got some MRE's here and if you don't mind the pills mixed in with it, it can be quiet good." 'And deadly...'

"Done."

"_Is this Pizza Planet? Finally we got to you. My officers kept contacting the Covenant instead and got these weird coordinates from them. They look sort of like Earth's... Anyway, I would like ten large pizzas with maybe a diet soda on the side."_

"Hold on. Let me write that down." Fred took out a crumbled piece of paper and pen. He was about to write when he stopped. "Heeey. I don't work at a pizza place. _Who is this!_"

"This is Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. I'm 50 years old, my birthday is in March and my favorite color is green. My position is a gully southeast of where HighCom use to be. We started a lot of fires and even signal flares so we shouldn't be hard to find. Oh, by the way, my social security number is..."

Fred blinked. Who the hell was talking to him?

"-7465658656979... Hey, are you even listening to me?"

"Uh. We don't serve pizza..."

"Then why did you even bother to call me!"

"You called us!"

"Oh, that's right." The Admiral cleared his throat. "Er, I need to be picked up and protected since _I _am in charged of Reach now that everyone of higher rank mysteriously died."

"Gotcha." Fred contacted the other Spartans. "Alright, everyone catch that transmission?" Acknowledgment lights blinked and blinded Fred briefly. "Okay... ow... uh, we will split up into groups of four in order to accomplish these various task. Everybody come to my position and we will draw names from the hat to see who goes into which group."

_**Later...**_

Fred, Kelly and Joshua stood near the Banshees in the compound.

"Only three of us are going?" asked Joshua.

"Yup!" Fred smiled from within his helmet.

Kelly crossed her arms. "How the hell did I get paired up with you?"

"Don't worry," said Fred. "We are main characters, we won't die." Fred turned to Joshua. "Except for you."

Joshua looked at him. "Huh?"

"Nothing." Fred walked to the nearest Banshee. "Now to see if these work." He tapped several controls in the Banshee. The Banshee rose from the ground and sped forward into the wall. Fred stared at it. "That can be yours, Joshua."

"Permission to speak."

"Granted, Kelly."

"We have no chance in hell to beat these guys."

"I am fully aware of that." Fred reached for the tape in the Warthog. "But, I have a plan."

Kelly and Joshua stood, _shocked._

"We fly in with the Banshees and kick ass." Fred pulled out another item from the Warthog. "With the nuke."

"How?" Joshua asked. "The EMP would burn out the generators!"

"It would but look at it in a different point of view. If my television set blew up in my house, would it effect anything outside of it?"

"If it were near the windows, yeah."

"...What if the house had a force field around it?"

"Hm." Joshua considered it. "Probably... not."

"And _that_ is what I plan to do. Screw the mission, I want to blow up my television set!"

"Or we could use the nuke in place of the television and a Covenant ship in place of the house." Kelly suggested.

"Even better!"

"What if we fail?" Asked Joshua. "We will be in front of thousands of pissed-off bad guys."

"We're Spartans," Fred said. "What could possibly go wrong?"

"Uh, We die."

"Shut up, Kelly."

_**In Longhorn Valley...**_

Zawaz was awoken as the alarm sounded. He jumped to his feet and dropped his scanner in the process.

Zawaz picked the scanned up and caressed it as if it were his child. Hell, they ate their children. Zawaz remembered what his superior Elites said to him. Treat it as if it were porn.

Zawaz hugged it tighter.

It wasn't damaged on the outside but for some odd reason, it was spelling his name backwards.

Meh. He could get it fixed.

Zawaz look at the screen and saw the objects detected as a trio of Banshees. He relaxed and took his place in his hole. Zawaz soon fell to sleep.

-

Fred and the other Spartans had a wedged shaped formation. They were slowly gaining altitude as they neared the top of the ridge.

Fred was shocked when he reached the top.

They were _everywhere_. And they built houses with little gardens of flowers to the sides.

Odd. Covenant usually destroyed everything. They didn't set up houses or garden. Well, at least they didn't set up houses.

Fred activated a COM frequency. "Go."

Kelly sped off while Fred trailed behind. Joshua was somewhere behind them. Dunno. He _is_ a minor character after all.

Several odd symbols appeared on Fred's screen. He pressed the one in a shape of a curvy m. Dozens of other symbols appeared. Fred turned off the screen.

Kelly's flier pulled out in front of them. She gained as much speed as she could, making a mad dash for the gravity lift. The nearest of the guard towers. tracked on to her and started firing. One of the shots hit her starboard fuselage. It melted the front faring and her ship slowed.

Joshua flew.

Other plasma turrents fired at them.

Fred banked and began firing at them. The Banshee's primary weapon fire collided with the guard towers.

Joshua fired too.

Fred hit the button for the Banshee's heavy weapon. It impacted with a guard tower and caused it to collapse.

Grunts and Jackals began to fire at them. Fred looked at Kelly while Joshua pinged him many times for assistance. Kelly had her foot under the tape on her Banshee and had the nuke in her hand, ready to throw even though it was one hundred meters away.

Fred avoided the fire from the Covenant. One of the Covenant cruiser's plasma shots collided with Joshua's ship. Joshua lost control of his ship as Fred and Kelly entered the gravity lift.

Kelly fumbled with the nuke.

"Throw it!" Fred yelled.

Kelly stiffened and resumed her shotput pose. "Can't. Throw. Too busy. Posing."

"Damn!" Fred threw the tape at Kelly in order to get her attention. The tape missed and hit her hand causing the nuke to fall. While the nuke fell to the ground, the tape was caught in the gravity lift and pulled into the ship. Fred watched the nuke fall. "RUN!"

Both accelerated their Banshees and flew out of the area. As they were settling in an area safe from the blast, the tape detonated. A blinding light filled Fred's visor and slowly disappeared.

Kelly's Banshee appeared next to his. She pulled off her helmet. "Holy crap! Was that the tape or the nuke?"

"T'was the tape." Fred stared back to the area of the explosion. 'Some damn good tape too.' He felt like crying. It was like he part of him died.

Kelly looked around. "Joshua?"

Fred had a blank look on his face. "Joshua? Ooh. Him. He was hit on the way in. He _was_ a minor character after all."

Kelly nodded in agreement. She suddenly slumped onto her Banshee. "But... the tape."

Fred watched in silence. "I'm going to take a look. Stay here."

Fred powered his Banshee and looked into the valley. It was totally destroyed.

Still, ten thousand Covenant destroyed. It was hardly worth losing the tape.

Kelly's Banshee appeared next to his and their canards bumped. Fred rammed his Banshee back into Kelly's. Kelly rammed her's into Fred's. This continued until they spotted three Covenant cruisers heading towards the generators.

"They don't have the tape. All will be lost!" Fred opened his COM channel. "Delta team," He said calmly. "_RETREAT!_"

The cruisers began firing.

"Reactor complex seven has been compromised. We're falling back. Might be able to save number three." There was a pause as the speaker shouted orders to someone else. "Yes, I want fries with that!"

Fred contacted FLEETCOM. "Be advised. The groundside reactors are being taken. Nothing we can do. Too many. May be forced to use the nukes... again."

Voices crowded the channel and the COM soon went dead.

Kelly tapped him on the shoulder and pointed up.

Dozens of Covenant warships positioned themselves in low orbit.

"Plasma bombardment." Fred whispered.

"Naaaaw." Kelly commented. "Reach is lost. There is nothing we can do."

"Maybe," Fred gunned his Banshee. "Maybe not. Come on, we're not done yet."

Fred's Banshee lurched forward and crashed into Kelly's.

"_Damn it!_"


	3. WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD!

The Master Chief, with no helmet, sat in the pilot's seat of the Longsword attack craft. He didn't fit. Was he _that_ fat?

John scratched his head. Everyone he met was dying! First Linda, then his Spartans, then Keyes and everyone on Halo. Was he bad luck?

"Scan it again," the Master Chief told Cortana.

"I told you, _nothing_ survived. It's just us. Hopefully I don't die as well..." He felt Cortana go into the deep recesses of his mind. Was she afraid of him?

John's hand curled into a fist. Why did everyone he meet have to die? Could he return to Earth? Would it get destroyed too? Maybe the Covenant could accept him...

"Scan it again," he repeated.

Cortana sighed, irritated.

"Hey, we don't have a Slipspace drive or cryo. Plus we only have enough power, fuel, air, food and water for a few hours. So, scan again."

"It's not like your going to eat the entire stock of food in one day."

John felt sad. She was making fun of his weight again! That was a very sensitive topic.

"Just. Scan."

A few moments later, Cortana came back. "There's still nothing. Sounds like there is a wicked party on Halo's moon but still no transponder signals or distress calls."

"You're not doing an active scan?"

"That would take days considering all the crap that's out here."

"But what if someone doesn't want to be found?" The thought made John sad.

"But that's highly un-" Cortana stopped.

"What?"

"That noise from the moon, it's getting stronger."

"Meaning?"

"Someone is out there."

'But they don't want to be found by me...' John frowned.

Cortana's long range detectors detected something. "Uh-oh."

John looked at the scanner. On it was a silhouette of a Covenant cruiser.

"Kill the power! Now! NOW! Nooooooow-" Cortana shut down the power as well as John's oxygen supplies for a brief moment.

John gasped for air as he saw more Covenant vessels come.

"Status?" He choked out. "Have they found us?"

"Hmm... They're using the same scanning frequency as us... Strange..."

"Have they found us?"

"No one mentioned this phenomenon in any UNSC or ONI files."

"_Have they found us?_" John asked once again.

"Why do you suppose they use the same frequencies?"

"I don't know and don't care. Just tell me if they spot us."

"I can listen to the echos on the moon. Process active: analyzing Covenant signals. Piggybacking their scans. Diverting more runtime to the task. I'm building a multiplex filtering algorithm. Customizing the current shape-signature recognition software."

John blinked. "What?"

"I'm trying to make them not recognize us."

"I know but you said it way too fast." John coughed.

"Still scanning..." Several other ships appeared, including one gigantic one.

John stood stiffly and made his way to the back of the ship. He stood in front of where the cryo units were suppose to be at. Instead, there was a control panel. John knew it was a new Moray mine-laying system. He touched it and it exploded.

"..."

John forced open a weapons locker and looked inside. He needed ammo for his assault rifle.

'_Let's see... frag grenades... useless... Jackhammer rocket launcher... useless... shotgun... useless... chainsaw... pfft, I don't want to get sued... Arrgg! I can't see past these energy swords and Brute shots... Hmm... Looks like there isn't any ammo. Oh well. Thirteen rounds are good enough.'_

John closed the locker and walked towards the front of the ship.

"Chief!" Cortana screamed.

John panicked. "_What?_"

"Found something."

John's eye twitched. Of all the AIs to get stuck with... "Show me."

On screen was bullet shaped cone silhouettes. John struggled to fit in his seat again.

"It could be a cyrotube." Cortana began to whisper. "Maybe there are frozen TV dinners in there..."

"Alright! Let's go-" John stopped. She was making fun of him! "Stop that!"

Cortana laughed.

"Just move us towards it..."

"ETA twenty minutes. Considering the speed of the Covenant's scanning, I estimate they will make it in five minutes."

"We need to make it there faster."

"Alright."

"..."

"...Your not going to ask me how we're going to get there."

"No. I trust you."

Cortana felt slightly disturbed for some reason. "I mean, my method of getting there is likely to get both of us killed. You sure?"

"Yup!"

"If you insist." Cortana reached the cyrotubes in two seconds, using an unknown speed source that was clearly visible to the Covenant.

The Master Chief was thrown off his chair in the process. "_What the hell?_"

"The Covenant warship is turning towards us. I will attempt to jam their scanners to buy us more time."

The Master Chief saw that the one cyropod turned out to be three. There was the figure on the moon also in view. It was a Pelican.

"You see that ship? YOU SEE IT? It's gettin' ready to take off by its landing position. Har har!"

John blinked.

"Alright, now get ready to get those pods."

Cortana decompressed the ship, the chief got the pods, etc. etc. Then, as the Covenant warships were charging to fire, the Pelican on the moon took off!

They led off two of the Cruisers, got chased through a ice, rock field as they dodged their shots.

"Whoever is piloting sure knows their stuff." Cortana licked her lips. John felt disturbed again. Was she that lonely?

"We owe them a favor." John said.

"Indeed." He felt his mind go warm. What. The. Hell?

"Yeah, we owe them a favor." The Master Chief said quickly, before Cortana could fill his head with her sick ideas. He fired the weeny Longsword guns at the gigantic Covenant cruiser.

Cortana sighed. "You realize that isn't going to do any damage. Your just wasting our remaining energy."

The Covenant cruiser turned towards them, lasers charging.

"You. Dumbass."

"Shut up and get me a firing solution for the missiles." John pressed random buttons just to look smart. "I'll fire when they have their shields down to fire at us. It's genius!"

"Sure thing." Cortana did some random calculations like how fast they were going to die, how long it would take the lasers to reach them and how to get free cable. "Give me fire control."

John pressed a random button that made himself a cup of coffee.

"..." John pressed another button. It turned on loud, annoying pop music. The music, temporarily caused the Covenant lose their senses, making them fire without lowering their shields. This caused a whole lot of chaos and enabled John to escape unscathed!

"Let's go!" John put the ship into hyperdrive meaning it was going an incredible speed of 2 miles an hour. A plate narrowly missed them by ten light-years and was blown up by the Covenant.

"Let me drive!" Cortana slapped the controls out of his hand and began to drive. While John pondered on how this was possible, Cortana accelerated towards the rock field.

John wondered how he would get out of this situation. He couldn't escape this system and the Covenant knew. _Strategy..._ John suddenly thought of a plan.

John keyed the COM system and hailed the Pelican. "This is Master Chief SPARTAN-One-One-Seven. Recognition code Tango Alpha Three Four Zero. Copy"

"Copy." A woman answered. She let out a soft moan. "This is Warrant Officer Polaski. Nice to hear you, _Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiifffff!_" She let out several more moans here.

The MC ignored this. "Proceed to maximum speed at this point." John set a NAV pointer directly on the flagship.

"You sure are eager" John could just imagine her licking her lips now. "Alright. I copy. Hope you know what you doing." _Long moan. _"Polaski." Pause. "Out."

John thanked Halsey, for the first time ever, for getting rid of his sexual drive.

"Do you even know what you are doing?" Cortana asked, disappointed that the pilot was a woman. "We are going against possibly the strongest Covenant ship."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Oh, good." Cortana said sarcastically. She dodged many rocks and bitched even more when she found out all six cruisers were approaching them. "So what _is _your plan?"

"Something Keyes would approve of."

"The dead guy?"

"Yes."

"The one who turned into a flood monster?"

"Yes."

"The one you punched their brains out?"

"...Yes."

"Oh. Okay. That makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER!" She exclaimed.

"At least they stopped firing because we aligned with their flagship. ISN'T THAT NICE?" He asked loudy, trying to get the one up on Cortana. John nearly contacted Polaski but reconsidered it. "Get ready to intercept the Pelican."

" 'kay." Cortana did whatever an AI does.

Eventually they got near the flagship, where it was difficult to fire at them with the Pelican attached. John opened the access hatch and helped the hand that was reaching from the other side.

John felt surprised for a brief moment before he grabbed the man by the uniform and held him against the wall.

"YOU DIED! I _saw_ you died!" John added after an afterthought, "So why aren't you dead?"

The man smiled. "Hell. It takes more than a bunch of super powered alien creatures capable of taking on the strongest race in the universe to kill Sargent A.J. Johnson."


End file.
